Boston Adventures....the beginning of many

Dear whoever reads this,

This week has been fabulous in Boston. We are loving it here and besides missing our friends and family we feel very happy and at home. I think we have officially seen more new and cool things in the last week than we have since we've been married. It's so refreshing for a change to have so much to do!  I had no idea how many awesome things there would be to see and do. Did you know that Henry David Thoreau lived here and Ralph Waldo Emerson? Well I certainly didn't. Here's a little bit of what we've seen the last week starting with Walden Pond.

This is where Thoreau's cabin was and now there is a pile of rocks that people have stacked together, I kind of missed the significance but still cool

Then we toured Longfellow's house that he owned in Cambridge when he taught at Harvard and wrote his poems. The coolest part was that we had no idea it was his house, we were touring it because George Washington actually used this house as headquarters when he led the army.

Beautiful! I want a house just like it.

This was Longfellow's writing desk where he wrote most of his poems. Apparently he liked to stand when he wrote his poems. He also liked to have a statue of Goethe stare at him while he wrote it. Jason's jealous of the statue, he wants one. Also, did you know that Thoreau was the first one to translate Divine Comedy into English?

Next house on our list was John Adams. We went down to Quincy, south of Boston, and toured all of John Adam's houses. 

John Adam's birthplace, the oldest birthplace that we have of one of our Presidents.

This is John Adam's Mansion house which was so beautiful, I could also own this house. 

And this would be the part I'm most jealous of. John Adam's grandson built this and it is a building solely for a library! It has thousands of books and was built so that in case the house burnt down the books wouldn't burn. All it needed was a piano and it would be perfect! 

So far we spend a lot of time in Cambridge but we do make goals to go down to Boston which we've done a couple times. Washington D.C. is still my favorite city but Boston is very eclectic and I think I'll grow to like it more and more.  

This is a view of the Boston skyline from a tower in Mt. Auburn cemetery which is one of the most beautiful cemetery I've seen. Beautiful skyline though huh? 

One of my goals this summer was to see an outdoor concert and goal was accomplished! This is Hatch Shell down in Boston by the river. 

Cool Navy ship we got to see taking the Ferry from Quincy to Boston

Boston skyline from the ferry, isn't it pretty?

And this is the madness called Haymarket. This picture doesn't do it justice as there are probably a hundred of these little tents but I've never seen produce so cheap in my life. I mean a whole pineapple for a dollar and strawberries and asparagus and romaine lettuce each only one dollar! It doesn't get better than that. 

After being in Boston I can say that I am totally overwhelmed, so many people and different types of people and so much going on but I can also say that I love it and could have spent much more time there. I can only wait and see what this week will bring. Jason starts school orientation tomorrow and thus the real adventure begins. We are both really excited for him but he's nervous so wish him luck!

Because we want you all to come....

We'll give you a sneak peek of our apt. We love it. We feel so blessed. It's four rooms including a full kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom. It's in a beautiful neighborhood and we have great neighbors. We also love the people that we are renting from who have taken us to Costco, Market Basket (the local grocery store), Mount Auburn cementary (which is one of the coolest places in Cambridge), Walden Pond, and Concord. The quirky but charming things about our house are that it was built over 100 years ago and so it smells like a Nauvoo house (we got an apple spice candle to help), the oven is heated with gas so there's a pilot light in the oven, EVERYTHING makes noise, and our bed is smaller than what we thought so our comforter is too big, whoops, we also have a china cabinet and there are NO cupboards in the kitchen. It's wonderful though because we feel like we are actually living in a house. We have a front porch, a tiny lawn, the garbage man comes every Tuesday, we actually have space to host people, and both of us can actually cook in the kitchen because there's so much space. There is a standing invitation for anyone who wants to visit because frankly, it's better in person :)

Road Trip!

We made it! Four and a half days of driving later..... Here's some snippetts from our travels

 First was packing which was so hard! Trying to decide what to take and what to fit was hard. We have basically been living in a suitcase for two days. Thanks to Jason's amazing packing abilities we fit everything we wanted in our car and there was no space left!

 Then came the driving. This was after a day or two when Jason started driving like a Grandpa....

Then came the church history tour. We travelled across the country with Jonathan and Beth and they were so fun to be around. We got to go the Nauvoo Temple and do a session as well as baptisms for the dead, thanks to the temple workers it was so wonderful.

Here is our quintessential cross country road trip road

Then we got to stop in Kirtland and see the temple for an hour which we weren't planning on but it was wonderful.

And finally to Massachusetts! 

We finally got to our apartment today and I think we're really going to like it. The neighborhood is wonderful and the apartment is cute. We really like the people that we are renting from and they showed us around the town. We haven't made it in to Boston yet but that will be more adventures for this weekend. I'm missing everyone from Utah very much but I can't sit too long to think about it or it makes me sad. As you can probably tell by my post we are tired and just happy to be here. I promise more interesting posts will come :)

LIfe as of late

Well, this week has been fairly stressful to say the least. Although both of us are happy the summer days are here, our anticipation of Harvard and the unknown way are lives are going to be changing is taking it's toll. It was our week to teach Sunday School this week and I didn't have the strength enough to do it so graciously Jason filled in for me. Some days I just feel so far from being the person that I want to be and having the home that I want that it is overwhelming. I want to be the wife that can come home from work and be happy for her husband and unselfishly serve and have enough energy to put the house together and most of all be happy and confident with herself. Some days are much harder than others. Here are some reminders (for me) of how good life can and has been over the past week or so. Oh and did I mention that we might have found an apt in Harvard? I'll let you know more soon :) 

Our trip to temple square to meet Jason's Aunt and Mom. Can you believe that after all these years I've never been on top of the Church administration building? It was so pretty! (Also I discovered Instagram and love it!)

 Our 9 month anniversary! I can't believe it's come up so fast and yes we are one of those crazy couples but why not be happy and celebrate when you have something to be happy about?

And last but not least was our day at the Strawberry days Rodeo with our Cambridge crew! I've never been to a rodeo so it was quite the experience! They had strawberries and cream which were delicious and reminded me slightly of Cambridge although we were far from there...yum :) Also I just want you to notice that in this picture the married couples are separated yet the ones dating (Rachael in the back) are sitting together, it makes me laugh.

Finally.....a VACATION!!

After working with only a few random days off here and there since September, I actually had about a week of vacation time and Jason finished school resulting in the most time Jason and I have had together since we've been married. Needless to say this vacation was much needed. Here's what we did

First was Stephen's graduation. Congratulations Stephen, I'm so proud of you.

 Also aren't my brother's so handsome?

            

And then we celebrated Jason's birthday doing all of his favorite things, namely golfing, eating at Spicy Korea, dancing at our friend's wedding reception and best of all partying with our Cambridge friends :)

Stopping at Jason's house to enjoy the family and farm and then on our way to Jackson Hole!

Thanks to my work we got to stay at the Amangani which was amazing! They have excellent service and gorgeous view of the valley. They had this box of chocolates when we arrived, cleaned our car, and gave us a parting gift of a wood carving. We definitely were spoiled.

Then we enjoyed a show at the Bar J Wranglers and the beautiful scenery of the Grand Tetons and a hike up to hidden falls. It was wonderful.